Himalayan villagers deny murdering poachers in a battle over fungus — prized for centuries as a potent aphrodisiac and elixir of youth

Slideshow: Himalayan viagra

Yarshagumba was first discovered in the fields of Nar in the early 1990s. As a result, the incomes of local farmers soared

Photograph: Thomas L. Kelly

A court in Nepal is due to give its verdict this week on 36 villagers accused
of murdering poachers in a battle over a valuable fungus known as “Himalayan
Viagra” because of its aphrodisiac qualities.

The defendants make up almost the entire male population of Nar, a 13,000ft
clifftop village in the Himalayas, where seven neighbouring Gurkha tribesmen
were killed last year after trying to pick yarsagumba, the fungus.

The 36 men deny murder, claiming the poachers died after a fight broke out
over who had the right to collect the fungus.

Nao Prasad Upadhyay, the local police chief, called the incident a “horrid
murder” and described how his men had found two mutilated bodies at the
bottom of a 1,600ft cliff.

“They were in a place where the killers thought we couldn’t reach them, but we
got a taskforce of 80 police and we used ropes to recover them,”